Government-inspired passivity and the News.

So, I was reading fallenpegasus's comments yesterday about being a bystander in your own life. This was in relation to a murder in Sweden where an attractive and popular young woman (and the country's Foreign Minister) was repeatedly stabbed in a crowded department store. There were, to quote the article, "an awful lot of bystanders," and not one moved to deter the assailant either before, during, or after his rampage.

There's a smug assurance in much of the commentary going around that "oh, that could never happen here." Much of the assurance seems based on the actions aboard flight 800, but most of it is just plain old American to-do. There's even an argument that with "conservatives" in office, "personal responsibility" is back.

Bollocks. One need only look at Ashcroft et. al.'s "we'll take it from here" behavior to see that the American people are being actively discouraged from getting involved. The "No Child Left Behind" act, while on the one hand starving the beast, gives most people the impression that not only is their child's education not in their hands, it's not even in their local administration's hands: all responsibility has evolved to Washington. More and more, the Bush administration has given the average American the message, "Don't you worry your pretty little head off about anything." Bush's two distinct impulses, to wreck the system on the one hand, and to control the system at its root on the other, is probably the most destructive executive meme ever floated.

( The News )

Sick Omahas, Comfort Food, Physical Therapy day 2.

Omaha has come down with a serious cold. There's no fever, but she's exhausted, having trouble thinking straight, and just not enjoying herself at all. She begged me to come home early, and I managed to head out an hour early. She was cuddled up downstairs, watching the television. Kouryou-chan was so happy to see me, and even happier the rain stopped and she had a chance to go outside.

Omaha asked me to make dinner, and I did: tomato soup with basil and cream cheese. Recipe: two cans of salt-free diced tomatoes, one can tomato sauce, 3/4 cup of low-salt vegetable broth; bring to a boil then simmer for 30 minutes. Adjust broth to taste. Pour into a blender with 1/3 cup basil leaves and blend until smooth. Pour back into the saucepan, add 1/4 tsp coarsely ground pepper and salt to taste, then with a whisk stir in 4 oz of cream cheese and heat on medium for five minutes or until thick, whisking gently but constantly. Serve with slices of bread or oyster crackers. For garnish, slice basil leaves and sprinkle them on top. Or, cut the cheese to 3oz while cooking, then put 1 tbsp of sour cream as garnish, sprinkled with basil, for a slightly more biting taste. Kouryou-chan downed a whole cup of the stuff, but only after I put it in a cup so she could drink it rather than fumble with a spoon.

I had to walk down to the grocery store, and took Kouryou-chan with me so her mother could have a few child-free moments while the soup simmered. She was adorable the whole trip. We worked on what letters words start with. She had no trouble with the monophonemes, but the blends were a problem. "Ball" and "cat" made sense to her, but "brain," with its blended opening, confused her. We worked on it.

After dinner, we roughhoused for a while, having a pillow fight and talking about our day, then we went downstairs and watched a little television before bed. Well, Omaha watched television. Kouryou-chan played with her dolls and I finished off the last chapters of The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold.

All night long, I kept waking up every few hours. I would be wide awake, but have no trouble falling back asleep. I would lie there for a few minutes wondering when the alarm would go off, only to look at the clock and see that it was 1:20, or 3:19, or 4:10.

The alarm went off and I pulled myself out of bed, got dressed and threw together a shake of protein powder, creatine, and orange juice, then headed down to the city pool. The lanes were actually more crowded today, but I found someone willing to share. I managed to do the entire kilometer, and this time started off easier. 200 meters of breast stroke for warm up, 100 crawl, 100 breast, 50 butterfly (I was supposed to do 100 but I just couldn't), 250 breast, 100 crawl, and then finished out with breast stroke. I felt vaguely nauseous some of the time, but I didn't get sick. I was less wobbly this time getting out.

I showered off headed back home to pick up my work stuff and head out for the bus. I grabbed coffee from the kitchen on the way; in my hurry, I mananged to scald it. Ick.

On the bus, I was dizzy for a while, but then felt well enough to open up the laptop and hammer another 500 words into the Catena storyline. Not sure if I'm going to keep that, but that's a discussion that warrants a spoilers warning.

Cwushed!

elfs's LiveJournal Secret Crush Stats The below statistics indicate what sorta crushes elfs has on his LJ friends!

No Crush 63.0% Secret Crush 25.9% Public Crush 11.1% Ex-Crush 0.0%

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